A silly question.........?

Hi,

This may be a silly question, but I wonder if someone could help please?

I am still very new to letterboxing. After meaning to go for some time, and not quite getting around to it, I made my first trip a couple of weeks ago with my 6yo son, who loved it. We went to Leeden Tor and found 5 boxes containing a total of 7 stamps. I didn't think that was bad for a first go! He is now hooked and we are off out again tomorrow We don't yet have a catalogue to check our finds against, so my silly question is.......

How do I know whether a box is registered and has a number? Are the boxes sited on the moor and then their location recorded and numbered or will the boxes number be known before it is put out and then recorded in the visitors book or in some other way in the box itself?

I know there is the 'And this stamp is....' room, but is that the only way of finding out their numbers before I reach the magic 100 and can have my very own catalogue?! Friendly as everyone is, I would feel ever so cheeky asking others to check my findings for me!!

Thanks in advance for your help,

Rachel and little legs

ok - to make it fairly short and sweet....

It was traditional in the past to go and find your first 100 boxes and then become eligible to join the 100 letterboxers club. This was to prove to the club that you were serious about letterboxing.

As for the boxes - it would be worth making a note of all the names of the boxes as you find them - not all the boxes out on the moor are 100 club letterboxes. A lot of them are what I would call tourist boxes or junk boxes - these are essentially boxes left out by kids who never want to come back to their boxes and they don't get registered as they normally contain a cheap comercially available stamp (which seems the norm these days) On area I did a couple of years ago had the same stamp design with 200 meters of each other... that is by the by.
A lot of the catalogue stamps quite often (but not always) have the catalogue number in the box.
Make a note of any phone number/email address and contact them afterwards even if it is only to let them know that it is on site and in good condition.
The other boxes you will find from time to time - though most of them are usually better hidden will be Word of Mouth (WOM) Boxes. Once you have been more or less accepted into the inner circles of the letterboxing community will you be eligable for these clues - but you never know - they might let you have some clues if you ask for them!

However the good news.... It doesn't matter what stamps you get to become a 100 club member! As long as you can produce them at the meet - then you will be welcomed with open arms no doubt - but do go along to the meets when the clocks change - a perfect day for parents to relax and the kids to go around the hall collecting many stamps

i always make a short note in my book beside each stamp... saying what condition the book is in and who put the stamp out.. and grid ref

well done on your first trip.

I went on my first attempt to Hay Tor, and was pleased to find some, but rather less happy to find rather dissapointing (read craft shop) stamps in the boxes. All three I found were in tupperware boxes about 10x20x5cm and the first seemed rather obvious. Is this unusually large for letterboxes, or were these just poorly hidden? I've heard of pill bottles, but somthing larger than what I'm thinking of must be needed to fit even a very small book and stamp.

I was up at Hay Tor about 4 weeks ago. Most of the boxes I found there were kids boxes so they will be large and quite obvious. As others will advise as well I dare say, to find the more 'official' stamps, you'll want to move slightly off the Tor and look in the enviorns instead.

What I would count as my first 'offical' stamp wasn't found at Hay Tor but when I started roaming a bit further afield. If I'm honest it was probably the more valued of the ones I found that day. Was very well hidden though and a good deal of luck found it. That one, and subsequent ones that I found were in old style plastic pill boxes that would contain 500 pills, rather than what you'd pick up at the supermarket, or similar, but some were in tupperware boxes (but still well hidden). Think it all depends on the person placing it really.

Hope you had fun though!

Absolutely!! That's the best bit; although I'm looking forward to my first charity trail information arriving. I've been to Rippon Tor today, and found a junior box well hidden, and well kept, and one on Logan Stones that wasn't. Oh, and sadly a very dead tin one.

There is definitely an art to placing and hiding boxes - personally I like to use as much of the natural landscape as possible without adding to it - like rocks!

Gorse is great to, but a little prickly.